


After the Never-Ending Rain

by CitrusCyrus



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Falling In Love, First Kiss, Nostalgia, Sharing a Bed, Team as Family, Unrequited Love, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-06
Updated: 2019-03-04
Packaged: 2019-10-23 12:19:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 20,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17683307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CitrusCyrus/pseuds/CitrusCyrus
Summary: RESIDENT EVIL 2 (2019) Canon. After escaping the horrors of Raccoon City on that fateful September night, the unlikely new parents of Sherry Birkin- Claire Redfield and Leon Kennedy- begin their journey to Claire's family home in Kansas. Along the way Leon confronts his feelings towards the mysterious Ada Wong and begins to feel a comforting connection and unmistakable longing towards Claire, all while trying to adjust to a post-Raccoon City world.





	1. The morning

The never-ending rain of Raccoon City gave way to a deceptively calm, almost quaint, bath of sunlight in the mid-afternoon tranquility of a small inn in the sleepy town of Snyder's Grove, which Leon Kennedy figured was no less than 70 or 80 miles away from the terror of that September night. 

“I'm gonna get her to bed,” Claire said as she lifted the tired girl Sherry Birkin up into her arms, “you check around and make sure there aren't any surprises waiting to sneak up on us, okay?”  
  
Leon Kennedy nodded and rubbed the sleeplessness from his eyes as he stood outside the Inn's one room office building where they had just checked in. Claire cupped her hand over Leon's and gave him a key to their room with the name she had checked in under written hastily on the small keychain: _Elza Walker_. It was impressive to Leon that through the entire chaos of last night- the exploding complex, the shit-smelling sewer water, fending off hellish monsters- that he still managed to hold on to his wallet to pay for their little 2-bed room.  
  
Leon watched Claire limp down the sidewalk to their room on the far end of the row just past a small pond with a cozy looking bed of flowers and a lopsided garden windmill, and he knew at least the little girl would appreciate the view. He turned the opposite way, and let his aching feet and screaming joints carry him around the small main office to the parking lot which was home to about three cars and a couple old trucks with faded _Dole/Kemp '96_ stickers peeling from their bumpers and back windows.  
  
Beyond that, Deb's Inn was located just off the Main road in the heart of Snyder's Grove which was no more of a town than it was a collection of small brick buildings clumped together across the street with a small diner, a gas-station that urged customers to get “Y2K Ready!”, and scattered payphones that adorned the sidewalk. The air was clean and refreshing, and that's what had mattered most to Leon. The stench of rotten flesh, burning skin, dried blood, and human waste had been so assaulting to his senses the past 24 hours that he wondered if he would ever be able to smell anything again.  
  
He paid close attention to the bystanders he would see walking- looking for any sign of a limp or a growl. One older man had a hitch in his step after avoiding a crack on the sidewalk, and Leon had instantly felt his grip tighten and his pulse quicken... _it's normal,_ he told himself, _it's over now._  
  
He shook his head and made his own way back to their room, knocking gently on the door to let Claire know it was him. In the bed closest to the door, Sherry was stripped to her white undershirt and still wrapped in Claire's unmistakable red jacket as she nodded her head gently, sound asleep, under the white sheets of the bed with her sandy blonde hair moving ever so slightly as she dreamed.  
  
“Poor girl is beat,” Claire nodded at Sherry as she sat on the second bed, her back against the wall, “I know I am...imagine you are too.”  
  
“Oh yeah,” Leon cleared his throat, “I'm just glad we made it out alive...I'd rather be tired and worn out than dead in that city.”  
  
“Or _undead_ in that city,” Claire said with a smirk she attempted to force down. Leon smiled at that.  
  
“Too soon?” She asked with a reluctant grin. Her bright blue eyes seemed to glow with joy as if it was something Claire just drank as a daily habit. Her messy dark auburn hair fell in strands to frame her rounded face, and Leon felt almost safe just being there with her, as if the terror of Raccoon City was further away the more she laughed and spoke.  
  
“I'd say I need a shower, but there's no way in Hell i'm changing back into these clothes,” Claire sighed as she hopped off the bed and gave herself a look over, still picking specks of dirt and grime from her ratty black tank-top and her weathered jeans.  
  
Leon himself wasn't walking on any red carpet. He had discarded his gore-soaked tactical vest on a stretch of highway and was left with a white v-neck t-shirt that had seen better days, with the bandage wrappings still tight over the bullet he had taken for the woman in the red dress. His uniform pants were ripped and faded, and his boots were eaten away and soaked in grime.  
  
“There's a thrift store right down the road,” Leon remembered as he turned around to draw the curtains back and look outside their room, “I can go get us something to change into, if you want to wait here with Sherry?”  
  
“Yeah, that sounds good. Be back by the time I'm out of the shower, though. Try not to get lost, City boy,” Claire took a jab, “you're hard enough to keep track of.”  
  
Leon flashed her a smile and turned to leave before Claire stopped him again,  
  
“Oh, if they have anything in black, I'll take it!”  
  


* * *

  
Claire was just shy of 20 and Leon was only barely north of 21. He had been able to legally drink for a matter of months and Claire was barely old enough to vote, yet there they were as survivors, way out of their own league, on the run with a daughter-figure neither of them were exactly ready for, heading to the only place they decided could be safe: Claire's family home that she shared with her brother, Chris Redfield, just over the state-line in Independence, Kansas.  
  
Outside an old thrift store, the gentle Missouri breeze had caught the door as Leon opened it, clanging the bell to let the old shopkeeper know they had company. If Leon had to put his deductive skills to work, he'd wager that he was the first visitor in a week.  
  
“Can I help you, son?” An older man with gray, thin hair, asked politely from the counter at the entrance. The building smelled like moth-balls and dust, but not in a way that was offensive, rather in a way that was comforting.  
  
“Just passing through,” Leon smiled and held up his hand in a relaxed wave, “needed some clothes for my wife and kid.”  
His stomach tightened and he immediately felt his cheeks blush. _Why did I say it like that?_  
  
“You look like you just got out of a scrap or two, my goodness,” the man adjusted his bifocals and leaned in, “you in trouble, son? Do you need me to call anyone?” He reached a wrinkled hand for the phone on the countertop before Leon stepped forward towards him, gently hovering his hand over the man's own.  
  
“No, no, it's nothing like that, please don't worry. We had an accident and we're...traveling to stay with my girl's mom for a while. Nothing major, we're fine.” Leon stepped back, the old shopkeep seemed to understand, and pointed him to the women's and children's section towards the back. As Leon turned, the portable radio on the wall behind the elderly owner started to crackle as an advertisement for Umbrella Pharmaceutical played.  
  
_“Daddy, come play with us! It's such a great day outside!”_  
“I'm sorry Timmy, daddy isn't feeling well, I've got a splitting headache and this over-the-counter medicine just isn't cutting it.”  
“Honey, have you tried this? It's Umbrella Pharmaceutical's latest cure-all, Safesprin!”  
“Wow, thanks dear, I'm feeling better already!”  
  
_Safesprin: The Common Cure! from Umbrella. Science for a comfortable life._  
  
Leon shuddered and felt an ominous chill tickle at the hair on his neck. He remembered the laboratories, the stench of bleach and blood. The white tile floors smeared with black and red blood and chunks of former scientists caked and tossed across the walls. The monstrous abomination of bone, organs, and sacks of meat barely concealed under the stretched-out skin of the creature that was once William Birkin...the monsters they created below the streets of that city...  
  
He blinked the pain away, the terror slowly manifesting into a wetness at the corner of his eyes. The red and white logo of Umbrella singed into his retina, as if he had stared to long into the sun. God knows those men and women down there flew too close to it to begin with.  
  
Snapping out of his lapse, Leon Kennedy plucked a few t-shirts from a rack of men's clothes and some bleached jeans. He managed to fit into a pair of size 11 white Nikes and a comfortable pair of Converse that he tossed in a basket as well.  
On the women's rack sat a black and white Nirvana t-shirt that Leon assumed would be Claire's size. Any bigger, she'd likely yell at him. Smaller, he might be complimented for “the thought that counts”.  
He grabbed a few more for her, and then child-friendly clothing for the young Sherry. A _Space Jam_ shirt with the yellow bird on it caught his eye and he carefully avoided one with a cartoon looking raccoon, feeling that might be a bit too close to home for the girl.  
  


* * *

  
After it was all said and done, Leon looked like he had just bought enough clothes to furnish a new closet and walked out leaving a $50 on the counter. His chest was still in pain, and he knew immediately he needed to change the wrapping.  
  
Back to their room, Leon unlocked the door quietly, careful not to disturb the sleeping girl. He sat the sack of clothes on a small seat by a desk near the dresser and paused. The shower was running, the splashing of water acted as background noise to Claire Redfield’s voice, singing softly as the steam twirled and danced from under the bathroom door into the small hallway ahead of him.  
  
“ _It's funny how those memories they last_ ,” her voice picked up through the shower rain,  
“ _like strawberry wine and seventeen_ …” her harmonious sound lowered again, and the lyrics were muffled into a hum. Leon recognized the song, he thought, but whatever it was wasn’t the kind of music he normally heard. Then again, her kind of sound wasn’t something he was used to either.  
  
She sounded sweet and vulnerable the same as she sounded confident and powerful. The aching in his chest, whether it was from Ada or the bullet he took for her, seemed to wane.

 


	2. Recalling Ada

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the feedback! Wow! I didn't expect this to take off so fast. Thank you so much for reading, everyone. In the middle of an ice-storm right now, so expect more updates as I'm snowed in.

“Mommy?” Sherry whispered herself awake from the bed, moving to sit up. Leon took his place on the foot of the bed, putting a confident hand down at her leg.   
“Hey, Sherry, how you holding up?” He spoke softly to her. She seemed to adjust to her surroundings and rubbed the sleep from her eyes, her ears perking at Claire’s voice.   
“My mom used to sing in the shower…” Sherry trailed off, smacking her lips and laying her head back down, “do you sing in the shower?”   
Leon chuckled and shook his head.  
  
“I got you some fresh clothes, Sherry. After Claire gets out we can get you dressed. Are you hungry? Do you need anything?”   
  
The girl smiled and let him know that she had all she wanted. A moment passed and the shower stopped, followed shortly by Claire’s towel-wrapped figure emerging into the room. Leon panicked, and cleared his throat to make his presence known to which Claire’s blue eyes turned to saucers and her jaw dropped.  
  
“Leon! I didn’t know you’d be back so soon!” Her face reddened and she slowly backtracked, now barely hanging out from the bathroom doorway.   
  
“I have your clothes,” Leon smiled, “I hope they’re okay?” he approached her with his arm out-stretched and his head turned to the wall.   
  
“You got me black!” Claire was almost giddy, “thank you!”   
  
“Sherry?” She called, “Come on honey, lets get you all washed up before Leon stinks up the bathroom with his boy germs, huh?”   
  
Sherry's playful laughter echoed in the room as she hopped out of the bed, running towards the bathroom and sliding past Leon to be with Claire. The woman gave Leon one last look, a poignant and grateful _thank you_ on her lips as she closed the door between them.   
  
Leon took another lap around the inn while the two cleaned themselves up, and returned in time for Sherry to dash towards him, embracing him at his waist and thanking him with a smile as bright as daylight for the shirt and clothes.   
  
“Do you need help with that?” Claire asked, nodding towards Leon's wound. He waved her off politely and grabbed a kit of first aid spray and Arklay Mountain herbs that he and Claire had consolidated after their fiery escape from the NEST.   
  
“I got it,” he smiled to her, “thank you though.”   
  
Before he shut the door, Claire called for his attention.   
  
“Hey, Leon?”   
  
“Yeah?”   
  
“You gonna sing for us?” She bit her lip playfully with a shine in her ocean eyes.   
  
“I don't know any Shania, I'm afraid,” Leon hung at the bathroom door.   
  
“You're such a guy, Leon!” Claire scoffed, “That was Deana Carter.”  
  


* * *

  
The steam of the shower filled the small room as Leon discarded the rags he had been wearing, shedding his skin of that gruesome September night. Washing himself off, or trying to, he realized while his bullet wound would heal and the dirt, blood, and grease from Raccoon City could be scrubbed away, the events of that night would never leave him. They were scarred in him now deeper than any cut and messier than any gunshot.   
  
His slender fingers traced the wound and he could still see Anette Birkin firing her sidearm at Ada Wong in that service tunnel. The scent of the charred corpse mixing with the sharp sting of gunpowder and rusted aroma of blood. He could feel the warmth of waking up in Ada's trench-coat and the comfort of the dressing she had given him.   
  
He closed his eyes to the sound of the shower head's rain, and could vaguely recall the misty haze he had woken up in as Ada worked over his body. The compassion in her narrow hazel eyes as her bangs fell messily at her forehead.   
  
_“You stupid son of a bitch,”_ he remembered her swearing under hurried breath, _“you were never the mission.”  
  
_ Was that all it was to her? A mission? Leon clenched his jaw and rest his head against the wall of the shower. His sandy blonde hair clinging to his features and his worn, beaten, body finally letting itself relax.  
  
Was the kiss part of the mission?   
  
_“I'm not going to leave you here, what if you're attacked, what if you need help...?”_ that was when she cupped his face in her hands. Her liar's hands. That's when he felt her rose petal lips, and tasted the first thing he ever truly wanted. The first thing he ever thought he could die for.  
  
The first thing that could probably hurt him more than the rotted jaws of the undead, the gnashing fangs of the hounds, the festering maggots and puss of the venomous sewer creatures, the ghastly sword-like mandibles of the abomination once known as William Birkin...   
  
_“I'll be fine...”  
  
_ The water was cooling now.   
  
_“Don't worry about me.”_  
  
He opened his hand, trying to feel hers again Feeling her delicate fingers slip away from his into the fiery abyss of NEST's seemingly bottomless shaft. Her crimson dress and porcelain features being swallowed by the gaping maw of darkness. His throat tightened. He wanted to scream her name again, as if shouting for the woman could have brought her back up to him on angel's wings.   
  
There were no angels below Raccoon City, though. No. That was as close to Hell as he could ever be.  
  
Leon shut the water off and gently began cleaning at his wound. He held the spray close and spritzed it on his chest before crushing up the herbs on a spread of paper towels and pressing them against his skin. The sensation was cool and relieving with only a small bite to offset the relief.   
At least that wound would heal.  
  


* * *

  
“I'm hungry!” Sherry Birkin declared, sitting cross-legged on the foot of her bed, “Claire do you have food at your house?”.   
  
Claire's home was Sherry's destination. She talked it up to her like a parent describing Disney World to a child that had never been. There were horses that roamed on their acreage that would gallop between the patches of tall trees that would dance gently in the Kansas wind. There were small ponds where fish would gather and twist below the surface of the gently lapping waters. Her brother Chris, she told the little girl, had built her a tree-house that Claire was _“much too big for”_ but Sherry could stay up in it as long as she liked.  
  
“Dad was going to build me a tree-house once, in the back yard,” Sherry recalled, “but the men in the white coats showed up before he could. He and mommy said they had to work on the future together, and that my tree-house could wait.”   
  
“Well you don't have to worry about that anymore, okay Sherry?” Claire's demeanor changed, and Leon watched her place strong hands on the girl's slender shoulders. “you're our future now. We're not leaving you. For anything.”  
  
Sherry's face reddened slightly, and Leon could see she was trying not to cry.  
  
"Leon? Could we build a tree-house at Claire's?" Sherry asked through a grin, squinting her wet eyes.   
  
 _Build a tree-house?_ Leon nearly broke his thumb trying to hammer boards over the windows at the R.P.D. He had no business even thinking about something that large scale...but Claire's aquatic eyes seemed to smirk at him, awaiting his reply to the girl.  
  
"Of course we can," Leon cleared his throat, "where else is the parrot gonna go when he's flying around?"

 

 


	3. Afternoon sweets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't tell you how much I appreciate the feedback! Thank you so much everyone. Hope you're enjoying this.

The sun began to set, and they went out for a walk to find anything they could to eat. A diner by the name of Sebastian's was lit up in the twilight of their small town pit-stop that promised _“The best cherry pie in Missouri!”._  
Holding Leon's hand in one and Claire's in the other, Sherry swung their arms as she hurriedly guided them in and declared she needed a table for three and _“the best pie in Miss-hurry”._  
  
“Is it okay that I got the pie before dinner, Claire?” Sherry asked doe-eyed, looking up at Claire on their side of the table as Leon flipped through the three page pamphlet of a menu.  
  
“Is it okay? Of course it's okay!” Claire beamed, “Heck, I might have some too. What about you, Leon?” She asked, to which Sherry giggled in delight.  
  
“Ah, I'm not much of a sweets guy, but you two can knock yourselves out. Just don't come crying to me if you're hungry again later, okay?” Leon put on a falsely stern tone that he couldn't even attempt to play straight. He had a nephew close to Sherry's age that he would see regularly before he had been to his POST Training, but he was never exactly the best with kids.  
  
Maybe that's because to everyone around him, he was just that. A kid. The two girls continued to laugh among each-other as a warm looking woman took their order and even gave Sherry a small button that had a cartoon drawing of a slice of pie with _“Seb's!”_ written across it.  
  
“What do you do, Claire?” Sherry asked after taking a few bites of her dessert, “I know Leon is a police-man, is that what you are too?”  
  
Leon's interest was caught now. It occurred to him that he didn't know much of Claire Redfield besides her quest to find her brother Chris, a S.T.A.R.S. Member, who had been missing just before the Raccoon City incident.  
  
“Me? A police-woman? No way. I go to college, I sit in a big classroom all day and pay money to be taught about stuff I already know for a fancy piece of paper with my name written in cursive on the bottom.”  
  
Sherry thought that was fascinating, and Leon chuckled at Claire's description.  
  
“What did you go to school for?” He asked her as he nursed the black coffee he had ordered.  
  
“Automotive technology,” Claire sighed, “I guess I'll never see my bike again, huh?” she seemed defeated as she sliced off another bite of the pie with her fork.  
  
“Don't tell me it was at that gas-station?” Leon shook his head, “you rode your motorcycle to the city in the pouring rain? God.”  
  
“Hey, that wasn't just a _motorcycle._ It was a Harley Davidson FXS Night Train, thank you very much, _Officer_ Kennedy,” she playfully snapped to him and Leon held his hands up in defeat. Finally, it seemed Sherry's sweet-tooth had been satisfied. Leon left a $20 on the table and they said goodbye to the woman who had served them, with Sherry giving her a big hug as thanks for the button.  
  


* * *

Down the Main Street of Snyder's Grove, Sherry spotted a small park and urged for the two to play with her. Being completely unable to resist, Claire gripped Leon's hand in a spur-of-the moment haste and jogged with the two of them across the street. Leon noticed, though, that after they had crossed and watched Sherry giddily make her way to a set of swings, Claire's grasp didn't immediately loosen.  
  
But neither did Leon's.  
  
They both caught on seemingly at the same time, and let go with a blush on their cheeks. Leon shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans, and had to catch himself from saying anything as a reaction. Her touch was different than Ada's in a way Leon felt dangerously comfortable with. He owed his life to two women that night, that was certain. But which did he owe his heart to?  
  
“Say, Leon,” Claire swayed standing by him, biting her lip again and side eyeing him as a prelude to an inevitable inquiry. He turned his head to her.  
“I saw a liquor store just down the road...maybe after we tuck Sherry in, we could toss  
something back as a bit of a celebratory toast to our survival?”  
  
Leon choked up a laugh.  
  
“Claire, I'm a police officer, and you're asking me to buy liquor for a minor.”  
  
“I'm 19, Leon!” She protested playfully, “besides, you were a cop for a whole, what, four or five hours? I don't think Chief Irons- _rest in piss_ \- is exactly in a position to reprimand you for buying a girl who saved your butt a bottle of Tall Oaks Whiskey.”  
  
“Well, you have a point,” Leon mulled her offer, “what do you mix yours with?”  
  
“ _Mix it?_ Oh, Leon. I don't. Chris always told me if you have to mix your whiskey then you're not fit to drink it,” she crossed her arms over her chest before teasing him,“I guess you can pick up a sixer of bitch-beer though if you feel obligated.”  
  


* * *

The two played with Sherry at the park as the sun began to crest and fall in the blue sky above, and her laughter filled the area like it was her first taste of happiness in years. She begged Leon to keep pushing her higher and harder on the swings, demanded Claire chase her across the monkey-bars, dared the two to see how fast they could twirl the merry-go-round, and finally convinced them to a rather unsuccessful game of hide and seek that ended after the girl couldn't contain her giggling.  
  
Finally, her head began to bob and her eyelids seemed to grow heavy as she let out a deeply satisfied yawn. Claire hoisted her up and wrapped the girl's legs around her waist with her soft features buried in Claire's chest. She seemed like a natural mother, a perfect fit for the child, enough that Leon wondered if Claire had a kid of her own, or if she was channeling how her brother must have treated her.  
  
Stopping outside an old brick storefront with a sign reading _Milla's Mixers and More_ , Leon was once again greeted with a dinging bell above the door and a cheery looking woman waving from the counter at the far end of the shop. He browsed until finding a row of bottles filled with varying hues and labels of whiskey, and finally picked up a dusty looking bottle of Tall Oaks which declared it was _Made for the Ivy Experience!_  
Satisfied, Leon walked back out to join the two clutching the paper bag.  
  
“Leon? Claire?” Sherry whispered, stirring in her guardian's arms as they approached their room.  
  
“Yeah? We're right here, Sherry, what is it sweetie?” Claire's voice was the most genuine thing Leon had ever heard. So comforting even he felt lulled by it.  
  
“Thank you,” she mumbled with a satisfied happiness on her drowsy lips.

 

 

 

 


	4. Drinks with Claire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a short-ish chapter, sorry about that, but more is coming soon! Thank you again for the kind words and support.

The moon revealed itself not too long after, and Claire set themselves up with two tin patio chairs outside the motel room as the Fall day descended to a cool sixty or seventy degrees. Propping the door open enough that they could hear Sherry if they needed to, Claire took her spot and Leon took his.   
  
Claire had procured two glasses from the inn-keep and a small portable radio. When asked how she merely smiled and said it was her “charming disposition”. Leon had no reason not to believe her.   
  
“Here's to us,” Claire twisted open the bottle and poured a finger of whiskey in each glass before she handed one to Leon, “here's to surviving.”   
Their glasses met with a precise  _tink_ and Claire took hers back instantly, wincing and inhaling sharply through her teeth as a result. Leon dumped his down the back of his throat and dug his fingers into his leg to keep it down.   
  
“Damn, that's good!” Claire put her glass down on the stand between them so hard it rattled the portable, “How'd that taste,  _Officer?_ ”  
  
“Ah,” Leon cleared his throat and lied, “amazing. Just like the old times.”  
  
“You're not that good of a liar. That's okay though, the first one is always the hardest!” Claire taunted him. She picked up the radio and began to dial through stations of static with the occasional nugget of some talk radio conversation.   
  
“What kind of music do you like?” She asked him softly, already eyeing the bottle again with a thirst.   
  
“I don't really...” Leon trailed off, “I don't really listen to much music,” he said it as an admittance more to himself than to her.   
  
“God, seriously? How?” Claire's jaw was nearly dropped off as she squinted, like she was trying to study this fascinating anomaly of a human.   
  
“I don't know, things on the radio, sure. If I'm driving or something,” Leon defended himself, “I haven't exactly had time to sit around and get into any  _one_ thing.”   
  
Leon could tell she was about to say something else, and her thin lips seemed to struggle with what way she could continue to playfully berate him when he suddenly seemed to lose control of his actions, propelled by an almost divine concoction of fear and allure.   
  
“I mean, besides now... I'm listening to you,” he admitted softly. That seemed to surprise her almost as much as it had him, and she swallowed hard as the corners of her lips pinched away a smile.  
  
“Well. I don't plan on shutting up anytime soon, Leon, so you better not change that dial.”  
  
Claire reached over and poured another finger for each of them. The mahogany liquid splashing happily into clear glasses provided to them. Claire held up a finger-  _pause-_ and rolled up her sleeve on her right arm. An inked figure of an angel with shoulder length hair and a dress that barely kissed her thighs was posed delicately, showing off a bomb in her hands with two more rows behind her. Above the angelic war-monger were the words  _Made in Heaven_  inked across Claire's delicate looking skin.   
  
“Know what this is?” Claire asked. Leon shifted in his chair, leaning over, as if staring at it any harder would put it into context for him.   
  
“No, I'm sorry Claire, I really don't,” he shook his head. Claire held her glass up, meeting Leon's again.   
_Clink. Gulp. Breathe._  
  
She reached over for his hand and took his index finger, bringing it up to her ink.   
  
“ _Queen._ It was their last studio album after Freddie died.  _Made in Heaven_.” She brought the tip of his finger to the angel's features. Wide, immaculate, wings in rich detail were spread behind the posed figure- a shapely woman- with a choker around the base of her neck and small horns emerging from her shoulder-length hair. She was straddling an RPG launcher, her slender legs extending from a revealing corset, wrapped around the shaft exotically.   
  
Something about it reminded him of Claire, and he realized his finger was still tracing the wings of the figure before he withdrew himself.   
  
“My mom was a big fan,” The woman reminisced, “and my dad's passion when he wasn't running the gun-shop in town was art. So when they...” Leon watched her come with the words, “...died, Chris wanted to think of something to remember both of them.”   
  
Claire grabbed the glass and raised it to meet Leon's, letting the somber undertone pass with the taste of a drink. Leon bit the inside of his cheek and looked back at Claire's tattoo.   
  
“I thought it was a self-portrait,” he wiped his lips, “looks just like you.”   
  
Claire stared at him and squinted, the man nearly choked himself to keep from laughing.   
  
“As if...a choker? Come on, Leon!”   
  
The time was measured in fingers to the rookie cop. One finger per glass, two more glasses of fingers as Claire continued through the radio stations. Her cheeks were reddening and her eyes caught the street lamps from across from them as she explained all of her tastes to Leon Kennedy.   
  
_“Chris always taught me you could tell a lot about people from three things: their taste in music, their taste in cars, and their taste in liquor,” Claire crossed her legs and turned closer to Leon, “and you don't listen to music...you're kind of a bad driver...but I'll admit you seem to have pretty decent taste in liquor.”_  
  
Time was measured in fingers. Leon's were numb now. All ten. He could feel Ada's five, hanging over that precipice of pitch black. His one, on Claire's arm, he could still sense that. How it it feel?   
_How did it feel?_ Foreign? Familiar? Maybe it was neither, and maybe that was the best thing it could be.   
  
Claire shook the bottle, it was drank to about the label, so  _halfsies_ as she playfully slurred it.   
  
“We should hit the bed, huh?” Leon craned his neck back into the room, watching Sherry's wrapped form rise and fall with her gently breathing, “we still have a way to travel tomorrow.”   
  
“ _We_ should hit the bed, huh?” Claire stood up and stretched, raising her brow at Leon.   
“Damn, you're pretty straight forward, aren'tcha?”   
  
“N-no,” Leon stammered, “that's...I meant, sleep. I'm taking the chair, guard duty. Making sure you two are taken care of.”   
  
“Leon,” Claire sighed at him at him, “I fought off giant mutants in streams of actual shit, got chased by... _zombie puppies_...through the back-alleys of Raccoon City, and blasted off a four-legged eyeball monster on a train platform with a min-gun, all in a tank-top without even snapping my hair-tie. I think I can  _take care_  of us just as well as you can.”

Cicadas sang sympathetically as Leon's pride shattered and Claire had to hold her stomach as she bellowed out a laugh at Leon's comical reaction to the defeat.


	5. In bed

In the room, Leon clicked on the small lamp at the desk facing the window, letting them have enough light to get situated. He turned back towards the door and locked it, bolted it, and dragged his chair to prop under the knob. _Just in case.  
_Claire loaded her Single Action Army and twirled the cylinder before locking it into place and shoving it between the mattress and the frame. Leon checked Matilda- his handgun- and placed it behind the boxy television on the dresser at the front of the room.   
  
“Alright Officer,” Claire spoke softly, “how about we agree to just take care of each-other? Get some rest.”   
  
“Yeah,” Leon shrugged, “you're probably right.” He sighed as he began to lower himself onto the floor, grabbing a small cushion from the chair that was now being used as a door blockade with the intent to prop it up against the base of the dresser.  
  
  
“ _Seriously?_ ”   
  
Leon could hear the grin from across the room.   
  
“Get your ass up here, I don't bite,” she whispered, “and even if I did...I think I'd have lost interest in that after the night we had.”   
  
Claire made room on the small mattress as Leon crawled over her to collapse against the wall. He had forgotten how good an actual bed felt, even one that was as cheap as the one in their room. His body was numbing thanks to the whiskey, and he slowly stretched out to relax, leaving his feet nearly hanging off the bed.   
  
“Hey, Leon?” Claire mumbled before she shifted herself over, facing him now. She was close enough that he could almost taste the alcohol on her pouted lips.   
  
“Yeah, what is it?” His own eyelids were heavy, but they seemed to have the weight of a feather as he drank in the technicolor of her kaleidoscopic eyes.   
  
“I...” she exhaled softly, and Leon guiltily noticed her figure as she nestled into the mattress.   
  
“What?”   
  
“I snore. So. Hope you can live with that,” She teased, closing her eyes and puckering her lips to stop her smile.   
  
Laying there, Leon watched her eyes finally close. The chorus of the night was made up of only the soft breathing from the two women he was now tied to, with the sound of distant cars and the humming of nightlife insects letting him rest his weary mind.  
  
He would drift in and out for moments at a time, and after a brief dream of running through the backyard of his childhood home with his parents cooking dinner and cheering him on, Leon Kennedy found himself with his arm draped over Claire Redfield. Her shirt had been lifted from her own tossing and turning, and his palm was open on her soft stomach.  
  
His muscles tensed to move, but Claire's light snoring kept him there, listening. Her body seemed to react, and in her sleep the woman's free hand reached up and her own fingers seemed to glide softly from his elbow to his knuckles before resting, as if she was subconsciously making sure her security blanket was there for her.   
  
Leon finally let sleep embrace him as his forehead nuzzled into the nape of her neck. She smelled like summer. Like flowers and sun-kissed skin. Her wine colored hair was soft as feathers. 

 


	6. On the road

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so humbled by your support, thank you so much for reading everyone! I keep hoping to put up at least a chapter a day, sorry if the timing might be a bit inconsistent!

Leon, who hadn't had any legitimate sleep since the night before heading into Raccoon City, found himself sprawled across an empty bed before his eyes adjusted to Sherry's happy face standing over him with a paper-plate and a Styrofoam cup that was gently steaming. Her own eyes lit up seeing that he was awake, and she smiled so wide and so enthusiastically she nearly dumped the contents she was holding.   
  
“Claire said they had contemporary breakfast, and that you could use something to eat before we left!” Sherry sat the plate and cup down on the night-stand.   
  
“Complimentary,” Claire corrected from across the room as she flung her hair back into a tail, “remember Sherry?”   
  
“ _Complimentary_ , right, sorry Claire!” Sherry giggled and ran back over to help the woman organize the rest of her things.   
  
Leon's plate contained a banana and a doughnut, and while Leon wasn't particularly fond of either, he ate both fully with a toothy grin and a theatrical pat of his stomach as he thanked Sherry for the meal.   
  
“Alright, so, the way I see it we can either stand in the street with our thumbs up or we can get a bit more creative,” Claire mused as the three locked the door to their room behind them. The sun was barely in the sky and the world seemed doused in an autumnal hue of pinks, oranges, and browns.   
  
Leon, obviously, knew what Claire meant by creative.   
  
They stood in the gravel parking lot just outside the main office, and Leon could almost hear Claire's eyes darting from car to car while Sherry bobbed back and forth on her heels, ready for the day ahead. Just as Claire nodded towards a worn sky-blue Ford, the door to the office behind them opened hurriedly.   
  
“Miss Walker?” The old woman from the check-in desk called. Claire nearly didn't recognize her own alias until Sherry tugged on the woman's jeans.   
  
“Yes!” Claire snapped before clearing her throat, “Yes, that's me! Did I forget something?”   
  
“Well of course you did,” The lady shuffled over to them, her wrinkled hand clutching something before opening up to reveal a set of keys that lazily caught the September morning sun.  
“You're not gonna get too far without your keys.”   
  
“My keys?” Claire's face drained and she shot a look of concern to Leon who's body had tensed. Someone knew they were here. Was it Umbrella? The Government?...were they one in the same?   
  
“My keys, I mean,” Claire corrected her tone, “thank you so much. Uhm. I thought I lost them, did someone return them?”   
  
“Why, yes, actually. A woman came in just before you and your daughter got breakfast. She said you had left those back in 'the city'. She was very pretty. Short black hair, Oriental almost. We don't see a lot of women like that you know? Ms. Huan used to run the floral shop down the block and...”   
  
Leon felt like he needed to throw up. His heart tightened like it was being crushed under the weight of a thousand tons, and his throat felt like he had swallowed nothing but numbing ice water.   
  
“Did she give a name?” He cut the inn-keep off.   
  
“Why, Leon? You know this lady?” Claire asked sharply.   
  
“No,” Leon winced, “no I don't think...I don't think I know her at all.”   
  
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Sherry's wonderlust eyes soften, as if she could read his mind. Claire's brow furrowed only for a millisecond and she blew a strand of hair aggressively that had fallen in-front of her face.   
  
“Thank you, ma'am,” Claire took the keys, “we owe you.”  
  


* * *

  
The keys lead to a four-door white vehicle with tan cloth seats that was parked on the furthest side of the lot. Claire unlocked it with the keychain and slid into the driver's seat, checking the glove-box, consoles, and visors for anything they could hide. Leon helped Sherry get buckled in, and held his hand up for a high-five once she let him know she was comfortable.   
  
“Tanks all full. Nothing seems wrong with the car...” Claire mumbled as she fidgeted with the seat to adjust it, “I don't know though. This seems weird. If this lady could find us, who else can?”   
  
“Maybe we have a guardian angel, Claire,” Sherry said optimistically from the back as Claire started the engine. As the vehicle came to life, the radio system lit up and the cassette player whirred to life and began with the unmistakable first chords and harmony of “Crimson and Clover” by Tommy James and the Shondells.   
  
Leon watched Claire as she pulled out onto Main, her mouth moving softly with the words of the song. She had barely looked at Leon since they got in the car.  __  
  
“Now I don't hardly know her, but I think I could love her...crimson and clover.”  
  
Leon looked away, out the window, watching the shops and buildings pass by until the world opened up to a landscape of plains and distant trees as the newborn light of the day kissed the world with soft lips. _Is she really alive?_  
  
My mind's such a sweet thing. I wanna do every thing. Crimson and clover.   
  
Crimson like Claire's jacket, the Made in Heaven one she wore when he met her. Made in Heaven, like her tattoo. The one she loved so much. Clover. Lucky. Lucky like he was. Lucky he was to be saved by Ada...saved by Claire...  
  
Leon recalled reading once that clovers were the first thing to grow after a nuclear disaster. Something that sprouted after total devastation. Nature's little survivor.  _Like Sherry._  
  


* * *

__  
“You prefer a car or a motorcycle?” Leon finally asked as the cassette carried over to “Crystal Blue Persuasion”. Claire's attention shifted from the road over to him, and the agitation he thought she held seemed to have been nothing but a trick of his mind.  
“I prefer a bike, but I can drive just about anything. Tractors, trucks, boats...you name it. Eight wheels, four wheels, two wheels...Hell, I could probably learn a unicycle if I put my mind to it, I bet,” Claire was smiling again as their ride was barely escaping the light of the day. Far ahead of them, ashen splotches of water-color clouds dotted the canvas sky.   
  
“Can you drive a space-ship, Claire? What about a train?” Sherry asked gleefully.   
  
“You know what, Sherry, I think I could...but I'd need a partner!” Claire turned around for a moment to catch the girl's attention, “know anyone?”   
  
“Oh! I want to! I want to!”   
  
Claire  _hmm'd_ at the girl's volunteering and gave a  _tsk,_ catching her eyes in the rear-view mirror.   
  
“You have to be at least 15, Sherry, I don't know if it'd be safe taking a 9-year-old into space without the proper training,” Leon turned to her now.   
  
“I'm 10, Mr. Leon. I was born April 17, 1988. I got really good at the birthday game, if you couldn't tell,” Sherry smirked in a self-congratulatory satisfaction. The light in the sky behind them caught her golden hair like a halo and the cartoon-themed shirt he had gotten her fit like a loose blanket. She had her legs hanging off the seat, dangling carefree.   
  
“The birthday game? What's that like?” Claire looked up at her reflection as they continued West down the highway.   
  
“Well, every year on my birthday I had to sneak around the house and make sure mom and dad's books and calendars had my day on it! They'd sometimes win and let it slip by, but I got better at it so they could always go buy me ice-cream and take me to the movies,” Sherry's genuine happiness understated the heart-strings that he could feel cut inside of him and hear being snipped apart beneath Claire's chest.   
  
He looked at his driver, and she bit down hard on her bottom lip and blinked heavily as a tear slid heavily against her cheek. Instinctively he reached over for her hand which was resting on the gear-shift and gave it a squeeze. Claire looked over at him and attempted to open her mouth to speak to Sherry before Leon decided it was his turn.   
  
“Ice cream, huh? I love ice cream, Sherry. Say, how about the next place we see we get some, huh? What's your favorite?” He spoke to the girl but his eyes were still on Claire who shut her own, hard, before opening them again.   
  
“Strawberry!”   
  
“Strawberry?” Leon rolled his eyes, “yuck. What about chocolate?”   
  
“Leon, you're so boring! Are all boys boring like he is Claire?” Sherry inched forward as she spoke. Claire gently moved her hand from under Leon's slowly enough that his fingertips traced her own in the same way she had done in her sleep.   
  
“No, Sherry...I don't think there's many boys that are like Leon,” She whispered.


	7. The radio

As the trip continued, the cassette had finally overstayed it’s welcome. Leon popped it out and looked at the object in his hand like it was going to come alive and claw its way into his skin. On the cassette label was the unmistakable press of red lipstick with a message hastily written across the bottom:  
  
_I didn’t have to do this._  
  
“What is that?” Claire questioned, looking over at the man who felt the hairs on his neck stand and his heartbeat quicken. Leon clutched the tape and opened the glovebox, placing it on top of a worn owner’s manual and shutting it with a guilty clap.  
  
“Nothing,” he lied. _Why did he lie? Why couldn’t he have just told her?_  
  
_“I didn’t have to do this.”  
  
_A reply to the last thing he had said to her. A reply to his plea. He could have lifted her up if she just held on… _couldn’t he?_  
  
“Leon, you can tell me, it’s okay. Did something happen in the City? In NEST?” Claire’s tone wasn’t even interrogational. It was genuine concern. Leon knew that; but telling her the truth…  
  
The thunder rolled ahead of them. They were going into the dark clouds now, and the stretched blacktop highway seemed to crawl into an infinity past them, snaking over the horizon, winding between dusty towns, barns that were faded from too many days in the sun with too little care for new coats of paint, idyllic villages and cities that were no more than three streets and a handful of little pink houses. The rain smeared the sky between the clouds and the patches of treetops and outstretched farmland beautifully, like the tossed linen sheets of careless lovers. _Careless lovers._  
  
“I’ll explain everything when we get home,” Leon choked on the word. _Home_.  
  
Suddenly, the humming static of the radio cut in.  
  
_“…And we’re back here on KNUH 77.6, The Point, this is Jacky “Amarillo” Baker. More reports are coming in from what’s being referred to as the Arklay Quarantine Zone around Raccoon City just to the south-east.”  
  
_Claire reached over and turned the knob, raising the volume, and rolling the windows down to let the sweet-smelling country air and gentle hum of the wind as background noise.  
  
_“President Clinton’s Secretary of Defense William Cohen issued a statement to the Associated Press late last night that Raccoon City has been completely quarantined and Arklay County has been officially declared a No-Fly Zone as the United States Army has been attempting to combat a viral outbreak that has raised death tolls into the thousands, analysts predict.”_  
  
“Jesus Christ,” Leon Kennedy shook his head. It wasn’t 12 hours prior they were there, in the heart of everything. In the middle of that hive of destruction and bloodshed.   


_“With blockades failing in inner-Raccoon City, various newswires have reported talks of a sterilization measure to make sure this virus is contained. Apparently classified as a possible strand of something similar to rabies- carried by vicious and irradiated mammals- Senator Ronald Davis has proposed the use of an experimental thermobaric missile on the city of over 10,000.”  
  
_“Turn it off,” Claire spoke so softly Leon almost didn’t catch it. Looking back, he realized he wanted to spare Sherry’s young ears from the talk. The girl didn’t seem to even be mindful of the radio as she was lost in her own bright head, watching the scenery roll by in waves of amber and green.  
  
Leon fumbled with the dial until it settled on a country station hosted by drawling woman who seemed to be having a ball during her “Alan Jackson hour” which the three travelers were lucky enough to be a part of.  
  
“Chris always loved country music, you know?” Claire spoke again, “it was kinda’ his thing.”  
  
“Yeah, my dad was the same way,” Leon smiled.  
  
“Were you guys close, you and your dad?” Claire looked over to him.  
  
 It seemed in the onset of the country rainstorm they were driving into that the woman’s tropical eyes contained the brightness of the sky that was hidden by the murky clouds. Even without the sunshine to cast its observant light on her, Claire’s features still found a way to be lit like God himself had taken a careful brush to stroke the curve of her cheeks and, on the seventh day, applied soft flower petals to form the lips that were speaking.  
  
Leon paused on her question. It wasn’t one he wanted to answer, at least honestly.  
  
“He was more interested in his career than talking about country music with me.”  
  
“That’s okay, Mr. Leon,” Sherry reached up to place a small hand on his arm, “my mom used to say that a parent’s first job was to make sure their kid could live a better life, and that sometimes kids don’t really understand it. Maybe your dad was just working hard so he could make your tree-house the best one around.”  
  
Leon’s father died just before he graduated from the academy. He was doing fire-arm drills when he got called aside.  
  
_“If you need to leave…”_  
  
_“No,” Leon told his instructor, “he wouldn’t do the same for me.”_  
  
“Yeah?” Leon gave a light pat to Sherry’s squeeze, “maybe I’ll get back and he’ll have that finished for me.”  
  
“You think it’ll be better than the one you’re gonna make for me and Claire?”  
  
“Not a chance,” Leon assured her, “not a chance.”  


* * *

  
  
Their little getaway car pulled into a gas station just 20 miles from the Kansas line because Sherry, knees wobbling, told Claire she had to pee _like, really bad_. Claire obliged and offered to come with her, but Sherry proudly declared she was old enough to go on her own.  
  
Leon grabbed a soda, and stood by Claire as she pointed to every bottle and told him which ones tasted _like shit_ and which ones were _kinda shitty_ and, finally, which ones were _good enough_.  
  
“You know, Leon,” Claire sauntered over to a rack filled with bags of chips and other snack foods as thunder groaned outside and the tears of rain began to make themselves visible on the wrap-around windows of the station.  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“We really have to stop meeting like this,” Claire’s goofy grin recalled one of the first things she said to him after they had made it to the Raccoon City Police Department. Leon laughed at that and shook his head enthusiastically.  
  
“I think this is a bit different, don’t you? Or do you want me to rub some dirt and grime on your face, put up a locked gate between us, pop a nice bottle of First Aid Spray…” Leon jokingly put on a seductive tone and gave a growl, “maybe we can lay down to the nice cozy fire of a wrecked helicopter.”  
  
“Oh, my. Mr. Kennedy!” Claire’s voice took a southern-belle drawl as she raised her palm to her head in a playful swoon, “you sure know how to treat a woman, don’t you?”  
  
“No, nothing like that,” Leon grumbled, “just…surviving.”  
  
Claire’s bright blues seemed to laugh as she did, “That’s my line.”  


* * *

  
The two paid for their drinks and found themselves back at the car. Curiosity got the better of both and, as Sherry emerged to greet them, Claire popped the trunk “just in case”. Sherry, standing between them, covered her mouth as she squealed with delight.  
  
Inside, folded neatly into a fluffy square, was a butter-yellow blanket. Sherry gripped it and took it out, burying her face into it as it unfurled down to the girl’s ankles. The blanket had a playful looking brown cartoon bear waving in delight across the center with creamy white lines around to frame it.  
  
“My blanket!” Sherry yelled, “you guys found my blanket!”  
  
In the trunk space where Sherry’s covers were found was a small briefcase with a hand-written note taped to it. The handwriting, Leon instantly recognized, was Ada Wong’s.  
  
_Just in case. Watch out for A.W._  



	8. Homeward

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only a few more chapters left! Thank you all for continuing to read this and, of course, your feedback is welcome! Things are about to get intense.

It was Leon's turn to drive now, and the gently mid-western rain had sent Sherry to sleep, wrapped in her blanket. The rookie cop's knuckles tightened around the steering wheel as he played the scenario in his head. If that was Ada, which of course it was, why was she going through the trouble? The car, Sherry's blanket, the handguns for defense against...who?   
  
Claire eagerly flipped through the radio, commenting on nearly every station and song, gleefully retelling where she was when she first heard which track. The highway carried them finally just outside of Kansas City which was their last major landmark before they would be close to Claire's rustic Redfield estate.   
  
“There's a bar here called Outlaw Line,” Claire smiled as she perked up in her seat, as if she could see the place on the dual-state skyline, “right in the heart of the city on the Missouri-Kansas line. It's where I first learned to two-step and line dance, could you believe that?”   
  
“Really?” Leon looked over at her, “you must have had a killer fake I.D.”   
  
“Oh you betcha'. Chris was mad as Hell when he found out I had been sneaking in there for so long. It was actually one of his Air Force buddies that had made it for me,” Claire shook her head, “he'd kill him if he knew...actually, I think it's at the house still, I'll have to show you when we get there.”   
  
“Yeah, you'll have to, so I can confiscate it.”   
  
“Oh shush, Leon!” Claire waved off his empty threat. The windshield wipers lazily moved back and forth across the glass and the droplets were comforting on the roof of the old car as Claire settled into a station that had a 70's rock gimmick.   
  
“Do you dance?” She asked, interrupting the calming silence. Leon normally wasn't much of a talker...in-fact, silent car rides were usually his preferred method of travel...but he couldn't help but feel elated every time Claire spoke.   
  
“Not since prom, and even then I don't think you could call it dancing,” Leon cringed at his memory of flailing like a wet noodle in-front of Betty McCree in the high school gymnasium as some song by Nsync or the Backstreet Boys blasted over cheap speakers.   
  
“Well Leon, if you ever want to get to a girl's heart...especially around here...you have to know how to two-step,” Claire reclined in the seat, stretching out like a feline before an afternoon nap.   
  
“Well,” Leon's gaze took her in, “maybe you can show me.”   
  
Claire opened one eye in a mischievous grin, “if you think you can handle me, sure.”  
  


* * *

  
Finally it seemed like it was her turn, too, to nap. She had sprawled some directions on a small piece of paper for him to follow to Independence, and Leon mentally made sure to get all of his questions out of the way because he knew better than to try to wake her up.   
  
  
_Off of Overland Park, take 169 South towards Oklahoma- just follow the Oklahoma signs if you aren't sure! And before you know it you'll see Independence.  
  
_ There were the Oklahoma signs, sure enough, and after Leon Kennedy passed Overland Park he was due south, on his way to hopefully a comfortable couch and some time to finally just sit down. He had his own life to get back to...didn't he?   
  
_Didn't he? Or was this his life now?  
  
_ The soft rain still poured and he ran through every scenario he possibly could in his mind. The happy, normal one, was that he could get the girls home safe and make his way back home to maybe see his mother again and his friends back in town...if they weren't targets. Were they targets?   
  
He looked towards Claire, and then back to Sherry, both angels nestled in a slumber. Were _they_ targets?  
  
The other scenario was playing now.   
  
Surely, it wasn't all going to be that easy. Umbrella had to know where they were, who they had with them...what they've seen. Was it Umbrella making the call that the man on the radio was talking about? A full clean-up with some missile to sterilize Raccoon City?   
  
If Ada... _if that was Ada_... _of course it was, why wouldn't it be?..._ if Ada could find them, a “mercenary” like her, who else was on the hunt?   
  
The radio cut back in. An emergency announcement began to play over the alternative rock station Leon was half-listening to.   
  
“ _We interrupt this programming for an announcement from the Federal Emergency Management Agency on behalf of the United States Government and the Federal Government of Missouri. This is not a drill.  
  
At 06:00 Military Time tomorrow, Thursday October 1, the United States Air Force and Army branches of the military, on behalf of the United States Government, will commence their sterilization of Raccoon City, Missouri. In an effort to contain and eradicate a deadly virus that has swept through the metropolitan area...”  
  
_The voice continued, but Leon couldn't focus. He felt sick to his stomach, like it was all somehow his fault. _I wore that badge...that uniform...to protect the innocent. I took that job to defend the people of Raccoon City. And the ones that aren't turned, the ones barricaded in their homes, apartments, wherever...they're expecting to be rescued.  
  
They're expecting for their door to be kicked down and some man or woman in uniform will be there, telling them it's all going to be okay. Instead, they'll hear a faint clap, and they'll never hear- or see- anything else again.  
  
_Leon Kennedy looked back at Sherry, and the guilt he had was lessened. She survived. She was safe.   
  
_But for how long?_  
  


* * *

 _  
_The miles on the car's display ticked up as the hours continued, and he made a game of counting the markers or making mental tallies every-time Claire nearly woke herself up with a soft snore. Finally, a faded green sign along the highway told him he had 30 miles until Independence.  
  
He let a few more pass, and finally put his hand on Claire's knee, gently shaking it.   
  
“Claire,” he whispered, “hey come on I'm gonna need your help here.”   
  
The woman, a sleeping beauty if Leon had ever seen one, began to sir. She smacked her lips of the sleep and extended a stretching arm so fast she had nearly clocked Leon's jaw to which she gave a mumbled _Sorry!_ to.   
Keeping his gaze on the road, he broke it to watch Claire rub the sleep from her sapphire stare.   
  
“Alright, alright, I think I'm up. What did I miss?”   
  
“Raccoon City,” said Leon quietly, “they're going to bomb the whole damn thing tomorrow morning.”   
  
“Everyone still alive has gotten out though, right? I mean. I can't imagine that many people sticking around, especially when that...virus...started infecting everyone, right?” Claire asked Leon hopefully, as if he knew any more than she would. He wanted to be strong for her, and above everything he wanted to give her hope, but even he knew there was no hope left as far as Raccoon City was concerned.   
  
They ceased their talk shortly after as Sherry began waking and, with her, the sun finally seemed to greet them. They call Kansas the Sunflower State, and spending the last 12 hours with Claire Redfield it wasn't hard to imagine that name pertained to just the swaying stems and golden petals of the namesake.   
The minute the girl woke up, Claire almost broke her neck to look back and check on her. Asking how she slept, what she dreamed about, if she was hungry or thirsty...Claire's optimism and care were infectious.  
  


* * *

  
Claire's directions lead them into Independence and down the rustic Main Street which seemed to exist out of time. Children played and rode bikes along the sidewalk, and elderly men and women in fedoras and bonnets moseyed around in no particular rush to go from anywhere to anywhere. Signs on shops and diners hearkened back to a time that was nowhere close to the end of millennium, the opposite actually, as if it wanted to inch backwards.   
  
Sherry excitedly pointed out parks and, almost squealing, an ice cream shoppe. She was already planning an itinerary of things her, Leon, and Claire were to do after they “moved in” as she said. Leon could only pray that their life would be that quiet...but the devil on his shoulder whispered to him, reminding him he had a mission. Reminding him of Umbrella...reminding him of her.   
  
Taking a right turn and through a few blocks of a residential neighborhood, their car hit a dirt road and took them into the country. Lone trees stood far away in fields with country homes popping up every few miles, sometimes in clutters and sometimes by their lonesome, until Claire nearly ejected from her seat pointing at a white two-story house with a wraparound porch that stood poised up a long driveway. The dusty mailbox, once green, was faded almost to white with the name _Redfield_ painted on the side.   
  
Seeing the house, seeing the destination only feet away, seemed to silence that devil's whispering to Leon, if only for a little longer.

 


	9. Almost Heaven

The property, Claire explained, was sitting on five acres of land that included a pond where she learned to swim and patches of woods where Chris had taught her to hunt and track. The dusty driveway ended right in-front of a large wooden garage and lead them to the porch of the Redfield home.   
  
The wind-chimes sang lackadaisically in the breeze that still carried with it the sweet smell of a fall rain shower. Leon closed his eyes for a moment and could almost smell Sunday dinner being cooked, and in that vision saw a small, hyper, girl running with her older brother after playing in the elements. _Made in Heaven._   
  
Claire jiggled the front door and ushered them inside.   
  
“I paid Mr. Greenberg up the road to come check on the house while I was at college, so don't worry, it's not like this place was just left to rot,” Claire mentioned to assuage the hesitancy she must have sensed on Leon.   
  
The parlor branched in three directions. To the left was a cozy living room where a medium-sized TV sat on an entertainment center that was piled high with VHS tapes. A coffee table was placed in the middle of the floor with various automotive manuals and books strewn across it in no particular order, and there was enough comfortable leg room between the table and the large couch which had it's back turned to the large windows looking out over the porch and across the front of the yard.   
  
To the right of them was a dining room with a wooden table marked with three chairs on each side. Various cabinets and shelves were placed around the room with knickknacks, fine divining plates, family photos, and empty vases where flowers must have once drank their days away on the refined liquor of the Kansas sunlight that poured in from the ceiling high windows.   
  
Ahead, was the kitchen which stretched along the back side of the house and joined the three rooms together along with a carpeted staircase that stretched up to the second floor of the house. Along the wall were pictures of a little girl and little boy with their parents, and individual ones Leon assumed were school photos. He made a mental note to find Claire's to give her a hard time.   
  
“Alright Sherry, lets go get you room, okay?” Claire reached out for the girl's hand and squeezed it tight as she lead her up the stairs.  
“Leon, could you bring the things in from the car?”   
  
_The things_ , of course, that was Leon's mission.  
  


* * *

  
After storing the guns- all of them- in a locked cabinet in the Redfield living room, Leon tossed the sacks of thrift store clothes on the dining room table and climbed the stairs which breathed and creaked gently beneath him as if the old home was giving the same kind of grunt that a grandparent would before raising out of their chair to embrace their young relatives.   
  
Sherry's laugh guided him right down a small hallway that had two doors with a bathroom at the end. The first door was opened, and there sat Sherry on a medium sized bed, in hysterics as Claire was digging out all of her old clothes.   
  
“You want this one with the cow on it,” Claire presented an old blue FFA shirt, “or this one with the car?” she presented the other one from a 1989 car show depicting a bright green cartoon sports car with a pair of sunglasses. Sherry pressed her chin in contemplation.

“That's a pretty cool car, Sherry,” Leon spoke from the doorway, crossing his arms.   
  
“It is, isn't it?” Claire agreed, checking the shirt out for herself. She held it up to her torso where the fabric ended just at her stomach, “unfortunately I don't think I could fit into it now.”   
  
Claire's room had one large window peering out to the front of the property, and where normal teenage girls might have posters of boy bands or movie stars, Claire had clippings and covers from publications like _Guns & Ammo, Gun Digest, Hot Rod Magazine, Grassroots Motorsports, Rider Magazine, _and more that Leon couldn't immediately decipher. Above the headboard on the bed was a sash that had the title _Miss Fall Queen_ and her nightstand held a small crowd of trophies from basketball and softball conferences.  
  
“I like cows too, though, Claire!” Sherry squeezed her palms to the sides of her head, “Mr. Raccoon's best friend in his comic strips was Carlton the Cow, and they'd help catch badguys a lot...I just don't know!”   
  
“I tell you what,” Leon stepped forward and took both the shirts from Claire, “why don't you take both?”   
  
Claire rolled her eyes comically, “Careful Leon, we don't want to spoil her.”   
  
“Spoil me?” Sherry looked almost hurt, staring up at the two.   
  
“Oh sweetie, I'm giving you a hard time. Anything in that closet is all yours, and if you need any of us for anything, we'll be just down the hall getting Leon moved in, okay?”   
  
The girl delightfully agreed and leaped from the bed to get to work going through Claire's wardrobe which seemed to rang from toddler to 20-year-old. Leon got the feeling she was a pack-rat, but he kept that thought to himself.   
  
“And you'll be in Chris's room for now until we figure something else out, is that okay?” Claire asked as they walked over the smooth wooden flooring of the hallway. Chris Redfield's door was shut and decorated with various posters and signs. One was for the Kansas Jayhawks, another for the U.S. Airforce. A few baseball teams Leon didn't presume to know, and mixed in with all of those were stickers for various gun and knife manufacturers that likely came with products.   
  
_Figure something else out?_ Leon thought of what that could mean. _Like...with her?  
  
_ Chris's room was about the same size as his sister's and contained almost the same décor. A poster for the movie _Commando_ was taped to the far wall, and several recruitment posters from Air Force were hung as well. In place of the basketball and softball trophies, Chris was apparently active in football and boxing.   
  
“Chris has some clothes left he didn't take to basic,” Claire noted, “but uh...I don't know if you can fit. He's a bigger guy.”   
  
Leon cocked his head before Claire hovered her hand and squeezed the air over her free arm.   
“Big guy. No offense.”   
  
“Oh, sure, none taken,” Leon dramatically sighed.   
  
“Mine and Sherry's bathroom is the one at the end of the hall over here,” Claire walked back to the door and pointed, “yours is the one past my parent's-” she cleared her throat, “-I mean my room. I don't want Sherry having to go all the way down the hall in the middle of the night, in case she could get scared or something. Sometimes the light catches the tree outside the windows and...”   
  
Leon suspected she was speaking from experience.   
  
“Sherry's seen enough awful things already,” Claire picked her words back up, “I just want this to be a safe place for her. Where she doesn't have to hide or feel afraid.”  
  
The woman crept slowly away from the room and towards the staircase.  
  
“Now, how about a beer? You want a beer?”   
  
“Not particularly, I think I'm-” as Leon was about to decline, Claire cleared her throat sharply and spoke again.  
  
“Alright, two beers, let's go enjoy this fresh air.”  
  


* * *

  
“It's like that song,” Claire began to hum as she hit the neck of the glass bottle at an angle on a small metallic stool which looked as if it hadn't seen paint in twenty years. The hit sent the cap popping off and rolling away until it lost itself between two planks of the porch.   
  
“You always have a song, don't you Claire?” Leon admired. The cool breeze played with the girl's hair like a passionate partner, and her bangs flirted back as they kissed down around Claire's temples like maroon fissures on her China-doll complexion, contrasting her azure gaze.   
  
The bottle was cold to the touch, and Claire made a note to tell Mr. Greenberg to _buy better beer.  
  
“_I hated Raccoon City. I mean, besides everything, I hated it,” Claire took a sip, “I was going to find Chris and come back. I couldn't stand being in a big city any more than I had to, you know?”   
  
Leon shrugged, indifferent.   
  
“I don't mind them. As long as the people are nice and there's a cool museum to check out,” Leon pressed his full lips to the cool glass neck of the bottle and watched as a weathered old truck kicked along the road heading into town. He heard Claire almost snort.   
  
“You're a _museum_ guy?” She held her hand up to cover her mouth in-case she spit up her drink.   
  
“Of course I am!” Leon stood up and faced her, “that's half the reason I took the position in the R.P.D. Because it was a renovated art museum! I had no idea that meant I'd be busting my ass trying to find medallions to open secret library rooms, though.”   
  
Claire howled at that, and her beer dribbled on the deck which only made her shake harder.   
  
“Can you imagine,” She took a deep breath and her huge smile spread across her now rosy cheeks, “Every-time you have to file a report- _Oh, better go find the key to unlock the special door in the briefing room-_ Oh my God...”   
  
The two of them laughed for hours sitting out there as the daylight began to slip away, and every so often they would call up the stairs to check on Sherry who was still having the time of her life playing through all of Claire's old clothes   
  
_“I've never seen this many colors!”_ She replied once.   
  
Leon looked over to Claire, her words to Sherry were inaudible. All he could seem to focus on was her.   
  
_Neither have I_ , Leon found himself saying. All he had been seeing was the red dress, but the more time he spent learning to laugh again, learning to breathe again, he was beginning to discover Claire Redfield just as much as he was beginning to discover Leon Scott Kennedy.

 


	10. Then they danced

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all of your kind words! Sorry this took so long to post, had a pretty busy weekend! Hope you all enjoy, this chapter is special.

“Can I go play in the yard, Claire?” Sherry finally emerged from the house with a pair of faded blue jeans and shoes that once looked like they were blue, only to permanently be dyed a dirty brown by years of hard work and play from Claire's own childhood.   
  
Claire bit her lip and took a small sip of her bottle before she shrugged at Leon in the same way that a parent would try to dump the burden of approval on the other to avoid conflict.   
  
It was darker now, but not too dark, thought Leon. He mulled it over for the beat of a second and wet his lips before sighing out an answer. _What was the right move here?  
  
_ “Okay, Sherry, but stay close to the house, and when we call for you, come home alright?” Leon stood up and stepped over to the girl with a stern hand on her small shoulder. Sherry, as she always did, smiled a bright, toothy, reaction.   
  
“I'll always come home, Leon!”   
  
Leon and Claire exchanged looks, as first time parents might when they feel they reached a satisfying answer together, and watched as Sherry bounded off the deck- clearing the four small steps leading down- and skipped around for a minute before giggling away around the corner of the estate.   
  
“Do you think she ever got to play outside at her house in Raccoon City?” Claire asked, her eyes still on the corner of the house where Sherry had been a moment before, like she was hung on the phantom outline of the girl's youth and exuberance.   
  
“She's told us the kind of life she had, there, Claire, and it doesn't matter anymore. She has you, and she has a life here. She has somewhere she can feel safe, and somewhere she can finally be a child. Raccoon City doesn't matter...and in a few hours it won't ever matter again,” Leon killed the rest of his beer and sat the bottle town cozily with the others which were now catching perspiration within their amber glass shapes.   
  
_Raccoon City doesn't matter. It won't ever matter again._ Leon swallowed hard. It was easier to say than to believe. Somewhere, out there...outside Raccoon City...the woman in the red dress was haunting him. Physically, emotionally. He felt guilty about the ache in his heart, yet at the same time he felt relieved with Claire, like she was the antibiotic to the love-sick illness that had been festering in him.

Claire didn't respond to what he said, instead she sat on the steps and popped another cap. The hissing of the air from the bottle was made for the melody of the wind-chimes singing in the twilight.   
  
“Hey,” Leon stood up and carried himself to the woman, holding his hand out next to her, “you still want to teach me to dance?”   
  
Claire raised her head to him and the ice-water pools her pupils floated in were radiating, basking in the afternoon Kansas sky that was blazing with the final breath of dying daylight, streaked with currents of honey and grape wine.   
  
“Mr. Kennedy, are you asking me to dance?” Claire's words floated from her lips, so soft that the wind could have stolen them away if he wasn't so carefully listening.   
  
“Well,” Leon stammered, “I'm asking you to teach me. But if you want to find a more seasoned partner, I can just have a seat.” __  
  
Claire stood up, her nose level with Leon's, and she pursed her lips as she gave him a look-over.  
  
“I think you'll do,” She smiled, “for now.”  
  


* * *

  
The radio cassette player she had brought out earlier sat hungrily as she glided over, popping open a case and sliding one in to feed the electronic device.   
  
“My Maria or Any Man of Mine?” Claire turned her head to Leon who was taking a fresh drink to drown the butterflies that had come to play beneath his loose shirt.  
  
“You tell me. Last song I danced to was Ice Ice Baby.”   
  
Their dance studio, their high school gymnasium, their chapel, was the deck of Claire Redfield's family home. She took control, as most women do, and took Leon Kennedy's hand to place firmly on her hip. His fingers, unbeknownst to him, reacted like gasoline meeting fire as they brushed under her shirt, hesitantly meeting her milk white skin along the line of her jeans. Claire's free hand clasped Leon's and she leaned in to whisper at his ear the instructions to move by.   
  
“Alright, so, one... _two..._ ” She instructed, moving backwards attempting to get him to take control. He fumbled, like an infant on ice, accidentally stepping on her shoes the first few tries. With every slip-up he would laugh nervously, and she would fall forward to giggle into his chest.  
  
Finally, after Shania Twain made her demands for her man five or six times, it had seemed Leon Kennedy had gotten the hang of it. _Step, step, twirl._ The first attempts he would make to pull her back to him would result in a few head bops and stumbles, but they grew more assertive. More emotional. Soon they began to move like it had been their destiny, like they were the only bodies programmed for the other. She would exhale softly as he brought her back into him, and Claire's eyes would lock with his for the split second of an eternity.   
  
The last time Leon had spun her, his bangs fell across his eyes as she was taken back to his body, and she broke from his hand, bringing her own to brush his fallen hair aside. Claire's fingers were trembling, and she didn't know why.   
  
Leon quickly brought his up, and caught her before she could tidy up his exhausted sandy hair. Surprised by his own action, he fought through the anxiety and took his right hand to cup her face, bringing it towards his own. Claire's brief words were muffled and then extinguished as he kissed her and let the wild fire of her lips burn his. She didn't taste like Ada. She tasted real.   
  
His thumb caressed her cheek and he deepened the kiss, now cupping her features with both of his palms. His eyes, closed, saw nothing but the brightest colors and the most exotic visions. As their lips parted, Claire leaned in to leave a small bite on Leon's bottom lip, like a signature to remember the exchange by. Both of them were out of breath, and all they could do was stare into each-others impassioned gaze. Leon wanted to continue, to press her against the door and-   
  
“Leon, Claire! I found a stick that looks just like a sword!”   
  
Sherry's scream of discovery from behind them almost caused the woman to shove Leon across the deck. They both snapped from their hormonal embrace and whipped around with smiles of encouragement.   
  
“Wow! That's so cool, Sherry! Let me see!” Claire gave Leon's chest a light slap with her open hand as she ran to the little girl who was swinging her stick around like a gallant knight. Leon took a deep, exhaustive, breath to clear his mind. He closed his eyes and counted to three before...  
  
“Hey come on! Where's mine?” He raced off the porch to join them.

 


	11. Sometime around midnight

The blanket of night fell over the rustic country home as Claire tucked Sherry into her bed, an attempt to make sure the child was asleep so she wouldn't be up as her and Leon would tune into the news to see the coverage of Raccoon City's final hours.  
  
“Claire?” Sherry asked, her eyelids heavy and her silky golden hair brushed to the side of her small features.  
  
“Yeah, what's up?” She asked, pulling over a small stool to sit on at the girl's bedside.  
  
“Do you like Leon?”  
  
Claire snorted at that, and a mischievous smile crossed Sherry's thin lips.  
  
“Get to sleep, alright? If you need anything just call and we'll be in here, okay?” Claire leaned over and kissed the girl's forehead gently before straightening herself back up and heading towards the door. She left the bedside lamp on, dimmed, and surrounded Sherry with all of the stuffed animals she could find still around the home. Covering Sherry was the blanket she loved from childhood, and the orphaned girl whispered 'good night' as she rolled onto her side. Claire envied her for how comfortable she looked, and was eagerly waiting her own turn to fall asleep...but that would have to wait.  
  
Downstairs, Leon Kennedy's foot kept anxiously tapping on the hardwood floor of the living room as he cycled through various 24-hour news networks. The constantly moving ticker at the bottom of the screen on each read similar messages to the other: _President Clinton offers support for Raccoon City survivors. Missouri metropolis to be bombed at sunrise. Coverage of Raccoon City's final night._  
  
Claire Redfield came down from putting Sherry to sleep, and he could still feel the woman's playful bite on his lips.  
  
“So we're staying up for this?” Leon motioned at the television as he inched over to make room for Claire who had changed into a pair of thigh-cut shorts and a loose t-shirt that looked two-sizes too big for her. The words _U.S. Air Force_ were printed across the chest, and Leon presumed it was her brother's before he had left to join S.T.A.R.S.  
  
“We don't have to. I mean,” Claire seated herself next to him in the center of the couch, ignoring the extra cushion she could have taken, “we could do something else. Watch something else.”  
  
She flashed him a look and her hungry eyes reflected the world in them. Leon hid his left hand and tightened his grip into a fist, more nervous than he had been during graduation at the academy. More nervous than his phone-call to Chief Irons about the job. He felt like this was a trick- a divine gag being played on him by a force beyond his knowledge. He kept waiting for Claire to leave, or to reveal she was someone else. In one rainy night, he had learned too harshly never to believe in anything...but he couldn't help believing in her.  
  
Clair leaned over and began to sort through videotapes that had been collecting dust on the coffee table, setting aside her beer which had left a small ring on the surface before them.  
  
“What kind of movies do you like, Leon?” She hummed, “this one's a personal favorite of course,” she held up the case for _Twister,_ “Chris always preferred action movies more than anything else so you name it, I've got it.”  
  
Leon leaned over and put his hand over Claire's as she continued to stack the VHS tapes.  
  
“Claire?” His voice was hesitant, and he was sure it was going to crack at any minute.  
  
The woman looked over to him, her soft lips gently parting and her eyes softening, like she was close to tears.  
  
“I want to watch you,” Leon held her side and pulled her towards him, she raised her leg over his and was on top of him now, looking down into Kennedy's longing, hurt eyes.  
  
“What do you want to watch me do?” She whispered.  
  
“I want to watch you be happy,” he told her, “I want to watch you smile. I don't want to think of anything else right now while that city turns to ash.”  
  
“Then don't think of it,” Claire leaned to kiss his forehead, “don't think of anything else but me.”  
  
She gripped his shoulders and brought him into an embrace, resting his cheek on her breast, and felt him shudder. Claire put her chin atop his shaggy blonde hair, and held him as his frame rose and fell. The woman pretended not to notice the muffled, nearly silent, sniffle he had given.  
  
The chimes outside sang for them in the midnight wind and the dying trees rustled to serenade the two. Their lips never left each other's and their eyes never opened as Claire's living room floor caught their clothes, layer by layer, piece by piece.  
Leon Kennedy had never known a woman's touch like Claire's, and she guided him. His fingertips, his mouth, across every smooth curvature of her body. She tasted sweet to him, like the first bite of a ripened peach, but unlike that first bite every one after that was just as fresh. He caught himself, between sharp takes of breath, devastatingly lost in her captivating presence. The more he mapped her physique like a cartographer attempting to plot an undiscovered paradise, the less he thought of anything- or anyone- else.  
  
Her moans and gasps with his name on her tongue began to grow louder until they both stalled to laugh as he tried to gently warn her to be quiet. _Don't wake the kids,_ he had playfully told her, taking a small taste of her earlobe. Claire had gently slapped his back for that before the laughter stopped and her shortly filed nails did their best to dig into his shoulder blade down his spine.  
  
They both went numb, limp bodies floating in a sea of sensory overload, and Leon collapsed next to her on the generously sized couch. Strands of his hair clung to his head, and beads of sweat rolled and pooled from Claire's collar bone down to her breasts as she slowly sat up and reached for a blanket that had been folded neatly on the back of the couch.  
  
Leon's fingers found their way to her knee closest to him and inched up to her thigh. Her skin was marked along her inner legs and small stretches across her stomach. Claire tried to avert his gaze from the marks with the blanket but he forced it back down. Her imperfections only made her more perfect to him.  
  
“Leon Kennedy,” Claire spoke to him, her nose at his as she rolled over to face him, “your wound looks better.”  
  
The wound, just above his heart. The wound that was his heart.  
  
“You're right,” he cooed, “I think it's finally healing.”  
  


* * *

  
Their night was spent making love, sharing the last of the beer between each other, and telling stories. Their naked forms covered by the warm blanket Claire had draped over them. By the time the bombs had dropped, the two had embraced for the last time, falling asleep in one an-other's arms.  
  
By the time the bombs had dropped, the man code-named _HUNK_ had been given a special order...  
  
_Find Sherry Birkin._

 


	12. The 4th Survivor

In Snyder's Grove, a matte black SUV rolled to a stop outside a small motel christened Deb's Inn.

“This is the spot? You're positive?” A man with ashen white skin and fiery red hair asked, pressing his finger to the small electronic device in his right ear.   
  
“Affirmative, Reaper. Intel gathered from following the woman from The Organization suggested that's where she went and, seemingly disappeared from,” the faceless voice from Umbrella relayed to him.   
  
_After Nestwrecker, after surviving in those God forasken sewers for nearly a fucking week, after giving Umbrella the Golgotha sample and making it out of that City...this is my vacation.  
  
_ The Umbrella Security Service operative known simply as “HUNK” has been given a promotion, if he could call it that, with a seemingly simple job: find the two survivors of the Raccoon City incident who had made off with the HVT- _High Value Target_ \- Sherry Birkin and either recruit or eliminate them before taking the girl back to Umbrella.   
  
Raccoon City was still smoking and the bodies were still freshly cooked, and Hunk couldn't even go home to pour a glass of whiskey to celebrate.   
  
Hunk entered the office where an older woman was thumbing through the day's newspaper with the headline _Raccoon City Decimated in viral cleanup_ screamed at him in black-set font with a crisp color image showing the silhouette of the once-lively metropolis against a blinding detonation.   
  
_If only she knew,_ the operative thought. _I wonder how much Umbrella had to pay to hush anything about their little experiments.  
  
_ His black boots were heavy on the floor, and the sound his muscular frame made gave an ominous precursor to his deep voice's question.   
  
“Two adults came here with a little girl, didn't they?” He asked the woman, unfolding two photographs he had been given. One was Leon Kennedy's R.P.D. Identification and the other was a college I.D. For Claire Redfield.   
  
“I'm sorry?” The woman leaned over, folding up the newspaper and setting it aside.   
  
“Blonde male, brunette female. They came here with a little girl- blonde- two or three days ago.”   
  
It wasn't a question.   
  
“I'm not allowed to speak about guests, I'm sorry honey. Are you with the police? Are they in trouble?”   
  
_Don't make me do this, lady,_ Hunk shut his eyes briefly, _just make this easy for me.  
  
_ “What were they driving?”   
  
The woman's look changed as Hunk's hand went down to his belt and unfastened the holster his Beretta was nestled in.  
  
“I don't want any trouble, son. If you just tell me what they did, or what authorities you're with, I could get the right papers for you,” The inn-keep slowly stepped back from the desk.   
  
“They kidnapped the daughter of Anette and William Birkin, two scientists who were working on a cure for the health crisis in Raccoon City. They murdered the Birkins and took their girl as collateral against Umbrella,” Hunk recited the lie as he had been told, “they're trying to take advantage of a national tragedy, ma'am.”   
  
Hunk had been trained to lie. Trained to kill. Born to do it, really. Did that mean it was right? Did that mean it never weighed on his conscious? No. His training at Rockfort Island, fresh from running ops in Desert Storm, weighed heavy on his broad shoulders. The things he had to do followed him into every bar from New England to the Midwest and helped pay for half his drinks too.   
  
“My God,” the old lady covered her mouth, “they seemed like such sweet people. _Kidnapping?_ That sweet little girl seemed so happy around them, I just can't imagine...”  
  
 _She probably was happy,_ Hunk thought, letting his thumb massage the grip of his sidearm, _William Birkin was a fucking monster. If that rookie hadn't taken the lethal shot on him in NEST those weeks before, none of this would even be a problem. Millions of people would be going about their lives._  
  
The woman coughed up the information as best she could recall, and Hunk returned to his SUV to relay the findings to control.  
  


* * *

  
“Sit tight, Reaper. We're looking into where they could have gone,” the voice told him, “I'll get back to you within the hour.”   
  
The FM stations were all the same talking points on Raccoon City. _The greatest catastrophe on U.S. Soil. A death toll predicted at 10 thousand. A gaping festering wound on the nation with Umbrella's fingers digging into the wound to pick out any shred of evidence they might have left behind._  
  
Control had given him a choice of targets: Sherry Birkin or some journalist named Alyssa Ashcroft. Intel had told him Ashcroft fled to Lousiana where she had family in some backwoods shit-hole called Dulvey. Hunk remembered a vacation to Baton Rouge, and the humid south was as appealing to him as the oil-covered deserts of Iraq in the Gulf War.   
  
A small bar on the main street of Snyder's Grove called his name, and Hunk decided to pass the time as best he knew: drinking away his past.   
  
“What'll it be, son?” The bearded bartender asked as Hunk lumbered towards the counter. The man he assumed was _Danny_ by the name on the tip jar looked like all the hair from his head had decided to take a vacation to the lower half of his face, where he had the kind of welcoming smile that Hunk assumed was enough to keep regulars coming back around. The only other soul in the bar was a wrinkled looking shell of a human with a U.S. Marine Corps ball cap on and a pencil thin mustache that collected droplets of beer above his lip.   
  
“Whiskey. I'll just take the bottle.” Hunk slid a wrinkled $50 bill across the counter and Danny nodded, reaching for a dusty bottle on the bar's back wall.   
  
Hunk had counted the spirals in the wood of his dimly lit booth roughly 30 times before the voice of God in his ear gave him an update. The bottle had a dent taken out of it, but only enough to make him thirsty   
  
_Reaper, come in Reaper.  
  
_ “Mhm,” Hunk responded. The bar was still empty, but the less attention he drew by talking to himself the better.   
  
“Seems like Chris and Claire have a house somewhere out in Independence, Kansas. Seems like a likely place they would have taken the girl. You could be there by sunset.”  
  
Hunk gave another grunt.   
  
_Acknowledge, Reaper._  
  
 _Acknowledge._

 


	13. A new addition

There was an unsettling change on the wind, like the entire world had felt the dying gasps of ragged air from the corpse of Raccoon City. Some say the physical impact of the bombs was felt states away, and other said it was felt around the globe. Men and women crowded churches, street corners, community centers, and their own living rooms to hold hands and pray for the souls lost in the crater that once held so many hopes and dreams.  
  
Leon woke up when the dew was still fresh on the blades of wild grass that stood silent in that mourning daybreak. He was jolted into consciousness by a dream of a woman with ink-black hair leaving his touch for the last time…but he didn’t wake up hollow as he thought he would. His arm was draped over the still body of Claire Redfield in a four-post bed. He shuddered and put his head between her shoulder blades and felt her breathing. He was an optimist, sure, but even he knew that serenity couldn’t last in a world built off violence. Often, he would feel the phantom pain of his gun rocking in his grip and see the fruit his violence bore splattering out into arterial vomit from the naked creatures crawling on their hands and feet, the undead, the grotesque walking flora…Sherry’s father.  
  
Leon couldn’t stay there. He knew that. He didn’t want to accept it, but he knew it. He propped himself on his elbow and watched Claire’s face as she slept. She would scrunch her features, soften them, twitch her eyes, part her lips, bite them. He wondered what she dreamed of. _Did she dream of him? Of Raccoon City?_  
  
He slipped out of bed and dressed himself, then tip toed to Sherry’s room where he peeped in to see if she was still asleep. After being assured, he slipped the keys to their getaway car into his pocket and gently shut the screen door, trotting across the grass and gravel on a mission. How badly he wanted to stay in bed with Claire…to wake her up by kissing her body from neck to knee…but that would have to wait for another morning. He started the car and began to drive.  
  


* * *

  
Claire Redfield woke up to the realization she was alone. Isolated in the cloud that she fell asleep wrapped in. It was a familiar feeling to her, but it was harder that morning than it should have been. She had never had anyone kiss her the way Leon Kennedy had…never had anyone caress her the way he had, or brush her hair from her eyes, or softly ask _is this alright? Is this okay?_ He was different than anyone else had been, and as Claire laid there, bare and barely breathing, she knew that there was a time before Leon and a time after. She was living in that in-between…the time _with_.  
  
Maybe he was cooking breakfast? But she didn’t smell the food. Maybe he was in the restroom? But the house seemed to mock her in its silence. Wrapping herself in the sheets, she moved to the window only to realize the car was gone. _Surely…he didn’t…_  
  
She had her answer almost as soon as her and Sherry stepped outside. The dusty road picked up behind their car, and Claire’s hesitations and fears, however unfounded, were discarded. The car lulled into a stationary position, and Leon’s blonde hair caught the sun as he climbed from the driver’s seat.  
  
“Hey, Sherry, Claire? I think we have a problem,” He choked. Claire’s heart dropped, and immediately she pulled Sherry close. _Was he followed? Did the infection hit?_ Before she could rush them inside…she heard a small yip. Leon reached into the car, and emerged with a small furry creature wrapped in a blanket.  
  
“This little guy…he doesn’t have a name,” Leon laughed as the small blonde pup in his arms lapped playfully at his narrow cheeks.  
“Leon!” Sherry squealed and raced across the wet lawn to him. He bent over to let the blonde lab see his new family, and the little puppy’s paws moved anxiously for the girl.  
  
“A puppy! Claire, Claire, can we keep it?” Sherry turned to Claire Redfield, happy enough that she was in tears, “can I name it Leon? Can I?”  
  
Leon sat the new addition down, and the dog hesitantly let its paws get damp in the morning grass before its nosed twitched in delight at Sherry Birkin’s ankles. She giggled into her hands before kneeling to pet it.  
  
Leon’s look to Claire was a gleefully guilty shrug, and Claire couldn’t even pretend to be upset if she tried. Watching him kneel to play with the two, she knew. She knew, like many know in that particularly finite infinity that solidifies the very uncertain certainty she felt.  
  
Claire Redfield loved him. She wouldn’t- couldn’t- tell him that. No, he would think she was crazy. Maybe she was, after all. Not even Alice could emerge from wonderland unscathed.  
  
“What’s his name, Sherry?” Leon asked the girl.  
  
Sherry took another look back to Claire with a quizzical gaze.  
  
“Claire, who’s the purple Ninja Turtle?”  
  
“Dona-“ Leon spoke before Sherry whipped around to put a finger to her lips, silencing him.  
  
“My mom always said it’s a mom’s job to speak and a dad’s to listen, Leon. I asked Claire.”  
  
Leon beamed as he stared towards Claire, waiting for her answer. The puppy had a name, it was decided, and Donatello spent the day being passed from Sherry to Claire to Leon, then back to Sherry, with a kiss on his snout and a rub on his stomach. Donatello, like Sherry…finally had a family.  


* * *

  
“I’m about 70 miles from Independence,” Hunk updated as he slid the nozzle from his tank back into the gas pump.  
  
“Affirmative, Reaper,” the voice of God spoke.  
  
“Any updates on the woman from the organization?”  
  
“I’m afraid what _they_ have is above our pay-grade, Mr. Reaper.”  
  
Hunk was close to resenting his nickname. He was close to resenting his profession. He let out a hollow sigh as he climbed back behind the wheel. He hoped, desperately, that the little girl was miserable somehow. That she begged to be taken, and that the two kids guarding her put up a fight. That would make the job easier, if such a word could even be an option. Maybe he had enough blood on his hands, staining his soul.  
  
_What if I just keep driving?_ He thought. _What if I just keep driving?_  
  
That wasn’t an option for men like him. Peace was never an option for men born to kill.


	14. Sundown

The rest of their day was spent in a haze of a country melancholy. Sherry had spotted the large pond on the Redfield estate, and Claire had cautioned playfully about the water.  
_There’s monsters in there, Sherry! We can’t go swimming, are you crazy?  
  
_Sherry looked up to Leon and Claire with her eyes that were pools of innocence and told the two that she wasn’t scared. _I have you two here to protect me, let’s go!_  
  
The cold of October hadn’t quite caught up to the calendar, and the day was a calm 75 degrees, so Claire begrudgingly had found Sherry swim-wear, and her own black one-piece she slipped into. Leon was stuck with a pair of Chris Redfield’s faded swim trunks that had seen far better days.  
  
“You know, I’d love to meet your brother,” Leon said as he and Claire strolled in their bare feet on the soft grass that felt like clouds as Sherry and their new addition, Donatello, raced ahead to the small paradise of a swimming hole.  
  
“He’s protective,” Claire mused, “especially of me. The last boyfriend I brought home he almost pile-drove him when he caught the poor kid checking me out. I think he’d like you though, Leon.”   
  
“Oh?” Leon halted, looking over to her.   
  
“Yeah,” Claire spoke on the breeze, “I like you. So, Chris would have to learn to deal with it.”  
  


* * *

  
The water was cool. Not _cold_ , but cool. Leon shivered only slightly when he sunk down to his waist, and Sherry stayed close to the edge of the pool, gently holding the puppy who yipped and licked as the waves lapped at his tiny paws. Claire wasted no time lowering herself and floating on her back, letting the sunshine bathe her. Leon had to fight himself to look away, and it was often a losing battle. They played like teenagers keeping their passion a secret from a chaperone, and under the natural surface of that Kansas pool their fingertips would touch, their hands would travel with hesitant laughter and playful romance.   
  
Leon felt safe with Claire Redfield, and Claire felt safe with Leon Kennedy. The more they would talk and laugh, the more Leon’s barricaded heart would fail to defend itself and the more Claire’s once-frigid heart began to thaw, the easier it was turned into wildfire with every gullible chuckle and soft glance from the boy.   
  
“You move a lot in your sleep,” Leon’s lips were barely above the water as he drifted towards her.   
  
“I used to have nightmares,” she admitted hesitantly, “I’d dream about darkness and terrible things, but last night…last night was the first time in years I dreamed of sunlight.”   
  
Leon swallowed his emotion and stared into her infinity.   
  
“What do you dream about, Leon?”   
  
_I don’t have to anymore,_ he thought, _I’m staring at it now._  
  
“I don’t, really,” he lied to her, “I kind of just…close my eyes, then I wake up.”   
  
Claire’s lips formed a serene smile, and she swam forward to place a small kiss on Leon’s wet grin.  
Sherry was exhausted by the time they had gotten her back to the home, and by sundown she was ready for sleep. But that wasn’t going to fly with Claire Redfield, no, she had a dinner to prepare.  
  


* * *

  
“Shit,” She hissed, closing the refrigerator door in the rustic kitchen where Leon watched her.   
  
“What?”   
  
“All I have are…eggs. Eggs and bread. Even when I’m home, I’m a broke college kid,” she laughed at her own misfortune.   
  
“Well, honestly that’s better than how my refrigerator looked back at my apartment. Instant noodles, to-go boxes…I’m kind of a shitty cook to begin with,” Leon sighed, “but everyone has a specialty. Mine is gourmet noodles, I guess.”   
  
“Mine is chicken Alfredo,” Claire laughed, “I think we know who the cook is between us, huh? Unless Sherry has a hidden culinary bone in that tiny body.”   
  
Claire began her tedious work on preparing the pans and oven and hauling out a carton of eggs with a loaf of bread. She busily visited every cupboard and compiled a supply-crate worth of spices and other shakers to help with the bare-bones meal, but neither of them cared about what they were going to eat because of who they were eating it with. Leon returned to the living room and adjusted the snoozing Sherry’s blanket on the couch where the puppy was nestled as well. Something, however, was ominous.   
  
Leon glanced out the window to see a jet-black SUV like a spot of ink moving along the horizon, a cloud of dust and dirt kicking up behind it. His jaw tightened, and he moved carefully to retrieve his sidearm from a cabinet he had securely hidden it away in. Looking back, the colorless vehicle slowed to a crawl just at the Redfield’s drive.


	15. The ultimatum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Life has been BUSY!
> 
> I'm so sorry for the delay in posting, but i'm so thankful to everyone supporting this story! This is the second to last chapter, so please stay with me for the conclusion, I'll get it posted hopefully at the end of the weekend.

Claire only nodded when Leon caught her attention. She took the pan off the burner and cut the oven off, letting the fluffy eggs collapse on each other as she tucked her handgun into the back of her cut-off jeans. The two of them, together, took long quiet strides to the front door and out onto the porch as the black four-door’s engine cut off and cast a chilling silence over the property.   
  
They waited. It seemed like an eternity, both feeling their trigger fingers burn with a call to action, until the driver’s side door opened, and a pair of laced black boots touched the gravel with a commanding crunch that accentuated the large frame of the man they were on. His red hair, cropped shortly to his pale features, shone menacingly in the dying light.   
  
“Leon Scott Kennedy. Claire Annabelle Redfield,” his voice was deep. Official. Before he shut the door, he raised both hands, palm up. A surprising sign of peace.   
  
“Who the _fuck_ is asking?” Claire spat, inching towards the steps of the porch. Leon put his arm out, keeping her back.  
  
“Umbrella Security Service,” The man stated, “my call-sign is _Hunk_.”   
  
Leon would have scoffed under different circumstances.   
  
“This can go one of two ways, Ms. Redfield,” Hunk slowly began to step forward, “either we talk, or you shoot me dead.”   
  
“I’ll tell you which one sounds more fucking preferable,” Claire hissed.   
  
“If that’s your option, this place gets wiped from the dirt it’s built on. You, Leon, and Sherry die with me, right here. Umbrella cleans it up, passes some cash, the whole thing gets swept under a tidy rug. I don’t know about you, but that’s not really how I want this to go.”   
  
Claire was still tense, and Leon clenched the grip of Matilda at his side so hard he thought he was going to crush the metal into the form of his right hand. Hunk kept one hand raised and gently reached into his pocket to reveal a crinkled pack of cigarettes and a disposable lighter.   
  
“Who followed you here?” Leon asked as Hunk fished out a cigarette and put it to his nearly non-existent lips.   
  
“Just me,” Hunk lit the cigarette, “I’m going to be leaving with three of you.”   
  
“That’s a tall order,” Leon struggled to keep his voice low, “what makes you think that?”   
  
“Orders from the top. So high up I don’t even know the elevation.”   
  
“Can’t see it but you can feel Umbrella’s piss raining down, huh?” Claire crossed her arms.  
  
“Claire, put Sherry to bed.” Leon spoke sternly, it wasn’t a request, and he knew he could talk the man down easier without Claire’s own fiery defense instigating the smoking operative’s every word.   
She shot Leon a look: _as if_ , but when Leon’s gaze didn’t flinch, she swallowed her pride like a dry pill. Claire slipped inside, and Leon waited until he saw her carrying Sherry up the stairs, the puppy bouncing after.   
  
“I just wanted to go home,” Hunk said as he slid his fingers around the butt of his stoge and let out a stream of smoke, “wanted to put Raccoon City in my rearview and just catch a game, go to a bar, just relax. But you two had to make that difficult for me.”   
  
Leon said nothing.   
  
“I can’t blame you, _Officer Kennedy_. Find not only one girl, but two, in the same night.”   
  
“Claire found Sherry,” Leon insisted, “I helped them.”   
  
“Not Sherry,” Hunk took a long drag, “we intercepted Agent Wong’s reports.”   
  
_Agent Wong_. Leon felt the impact into his stomach.   
  
“Met some pretty rookie cop, used him to get down to Anette Birkin…even felt the need to mention to her clients she helped you kill the Tyrant. Gave you a glowing recommendation.”  
  
Leon was back on that lift, fire and debris raining down, his ears splitting from the sound and his vision fading from the searing pain of that abomination’s hideous claws, watching the creature’s jaw slowly fall away into a messy bib of muscle and blood above its exposed, beating, ruby red heart as he unloaded the last of his clip into it…then a case was flung from what he thought was God himself containing that rocket launcher. The only thing that kept him from being gutted and crushed. It was Ada all along…Claire would be coming back in a matter of seconds, and Leon shut his eyes hard.  
  
He smelled the Earth. Inhaled the small serenity he had been granted. He was high in a split-second window on just how peaceful his slice of personal Heaven was. His heart was torn against his will between a woman who treated him as an accessory to an assignment and a woman that he embraced in throes of comforting passion that was as necessary as it was desperate. The desire to hold and be held. A family he never thought he could have. Leon wondered in another life if he would have found Claire Redfield, but wondering was all that it was. As hard as he tried to rationalize it, he knew he couldn’t have her. Maybe someday he could be the knight in their own private castle. Someday they could have a child of their own. Someday he could wake her up with a kiss and tell her breakfast was ready.   
  
Someday he could grow old, and watch his blonde hair fade to gray as they held their weathered hands and watched the world spin until it flung them off into an eternal rest.  
  
“I’ll give you an easy out, Kennedy,” Hunk lifted his boot and smashed the wilted cigarette into his heel, “you and Sherry come with me, and I’ll let the woman stay. Umbrella could use a man like you. Your talents- your experience with the _bioweapons_ \- could be invaluable.”  
  
Leon looked back, and saw Claire descending the staircase.  
  
“If you love her, you’ll make her see,” Hunk’s powerful voice seemed to have a hidden measure of something humane.   
  
Claire shut the front door as she joined them, her eyes were reddened, and her nose had been running.  
  
“Claire,” Leon turned to her, “I…”   
  
She held up her hand. She knew what was coming.   
  
“You stubborn bastard,” her words were faint, harsh, “I knew…I knew how this would end. I told her to pack, that she was going on a trip with you and the _ginger_. I know you’ll protect her, and I know it’s the only way but…” her voice cracked and he could see her tears well now, “…God damn you, Leon. You’re always the good guy. You always have to play the hero, and you don’t give a _fuck_ to think that the world I live in isn’t as black and white as yours.”  
  
Leon approached her, and Claire shut him out. Turning her back to him, she stepped back into the house. Leon looked back to Hunk giving him a faint nod. The man with the fiery hair returned the look and turned slowly back to his SUV.   
  
“Take your time, then,” he spoke finally.


	16. Finale: Prelude to Veronica

“This is for us, Claire,” Leon urged as he followed her inside, leaving Hunk to wait, “this is for her. You have a life, you have your brother, this house...I don't have any of that. If I go with her, at least she won't be alone, and...”  
  
“You don't have anything? _Anything_ at all?” Claire whipped around to him, her teeth bared in frustration.   
  
“That's not what I meant, Claire. You know that isn't,” Leon lowered his own voice. He didn't want Sherry to think they were fighting, he didn't want any cause for her to be concerned. Claire, it seemed, had realized that too and she gently brushed her hair from her face, tucking it neatly behind her ear to compose herself.   
  
Little footsteps upstairs told them that Sherry was ready, and soon the patter of her feet echoed off each stair as she descended to the foyer.   
  
“Leon, Claire, I'm all packed! Are we really going to go help the people that mommy and dad worked with for that special cure?” Sherry had the bottled excitement of a child on the day of a school field-trip.   
  
“Yep,” Claire slowly lowered to her knee to be level with the girl, “but I'm going to stay behind, okay Sherry? I have to watch Donatello.”   
  
Sherry was a smart girl. Too smart, Leon knew, by the way her eyes seemed to read what Claire was saying. Sherry Birkin took a small step forward and wrapped her arms around Claire's shoulders, nuzzling her features into the nape of Claire's neck. The small pup meandered around Sherry's ankles, giving off a distinctly sad whine as the girl's breathing got heavier. Leon Kennedy looked away and out towards the man with the fiery red hair, taking a solemn drag off his nicotine.   
  
“We'll be back soon, right?” Sherry's muffled words came from strong tears. The kind of crying that adults do, Leon thought. The kind of crying that hurts the hardest to see.   
  
Claire nodded. Each gave a sniffle, and Sherry broke from the hug to swoop up her puppy. Donatello's tail wagged and his small pink tongue lapped at the tears on Sherry's flushed face. Leon held his hand out for Claire who, surprisingly to him, took it.   
  
The three of them exited the house and emerged to their final moment on the porch. Leon put his hand gently on the top of Sherry's head and bent over, “go have Mr. Hunk get you buckled up, okay?”   
Sherry nodded and took her time on her final walk. Hunk opened the back driver's side door of the tall SUV and held his hand out for Sherry's bags.   
  
Leon faced Claire now and drank in her presence. He was drifting through the endless heat of the desert and she, for that very brief moment of fleeting ecstasy, was his mirage of a pool.   
  
He cupped her face, and watched her cheeks move under his thumbs. Claire Redfield's passionate spirit and blazing smile could never be extinguished but that October afternoon in Kansas, her embers had been cooled and her lips had faded. Her blue eyes seemed vacant. Hurt.   
  
“When Chris gets back, I'm coming for you and her,” Claire whispered, “I won't let them do this.”  
  
“Claire,” Leon had so many things. So many promises he wanted to make, so many observations he had to speak, so many declarations that needed his voice, but he couldn't summon anything but her name. He leaned into a kiss and could taste the salt of her tears that had traveled to her lips. Claire held his arms and kissed him back, a deep, thoughtful passion in her movement.   
  
Leon kissed the corner of her mouth, then her cheek, and delicately motioned her features down to leave one last kiss on her forehead. She sniffled at the last one, and he had to fight not to as well.   
  
“Claire?” He finally had his voice back. He had his words.  
  
“Come back home to me, Leon,” She said gazing up at him, her hands playing with tufts of his blonde hair at the back of his neck.   
  
Leon kissed her for the last time, “I'll always come home.”  
  


* * *

  
On an indiscriminate stretch of blacktop in southwest Kansas, a black SUV with plates registered to Umbrella Pharmaceuticals was light up by the flashing red and blues of an equally inconspicuous jet black Suburban, with plates registered to the U.S. Government.  
  
After the Raccoon City Incident, the freshly sanctioned organization of TerraSave, operating in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security & Bio-Terror, received an anonymous report from a nameless FBI agent said to be “working closely with Officer Kennedy” during the Raccoon Incident. In the report, the agent detailed she had reason to suspect that “Umbrella would be attempting to seize Annette and William Birkin's daughter Sherry” and feared for the lives of her temporary guardians “Claire Redfield and Leon S. Kennedy”.  
  


* * *

  
Hunk's grip tightened on the steering wheel, the leather screamed under his grip. A pair of sunglasses on a shapeless face with a tightly cropped haircut approached, his black overcoat billowing in the wind as he moved towards the driver window. Hunk was trapped. Leon, in the seat next to him, stared wildly between Hunk and the man on the other side of the glass. Sherry reached up between the seats to squeeze Leon's hand.   
  
The agent tapped on the window, and Hunk rolled it down enough to expose his face in the dim light.   
  
“Umbrella Security Service?” The man asked.   
  
“Is there a problem?” Hunk returned the question.   
  
“We're going to be taking Leon Kennedy and Sherry Birkin into Federal Custody. The United States Government thanks you and Umbrella for looking after them for us. I'm going to have to ask you to please step out of the car,” the agent's head barely moved as he spoke. No emotional let through his words.   
  
Hunk fought the urge to ball his fist and slam it into his steering wheel. So close. So fucking close.   
One job. _One job._  
  


* * *

 _  
_Halloween came and went, Thanksgiving followed soon after.  
  
Claire Redfield sat alone, prodding a lazily burning fire that sat lapping at the chimney in her living room. Donatello was sleeping, his small nose twitching and his stomach rising and falling in the warmth of a small pile of blankets she had laid out for him.   
  
She traced her fingers over the signature Leon had hastily scribbled at the bottom of a letter and in her other hand held a photo of Sherry Birkin in a prep-school uniform with Leon standing proudly next to her. They had talked on the phone off and on through the months, and Sherry's delightful voice always brightened her evenings. Leon said he was trying to convince the “higher-ups” to let them relocate but the current administration wouldn't allow it, especially not with his next job in the cards.   
  
_“I'm working security detail for Senator Graham,” Leon told her, “He's aiming to a candidate in 2000. You'd love him. He has a daughter too, and Ashley likes her. But they want to set me up at STRATCOM...you know where their headquarters is, Claire? Omaha, Nebraska. That means we'd be close, I could come visit, or you could move there...even though I know you hate big cities.”_   
  
She was flying out to D.C. To surprise him on Christmas. She had it all planned out.  
  
 _“Come home, Leon.”_  
  
 _“I'll always come home.”  
  
_ She had it all planned out. It was December 17th, a night that saw snow flurries on Claire's Kansas homestead. A night that a pair of bright white headlights turned off the cold dirt road and into Claire's drive. Claire held her revolver tight and slipped into a heavy coat, sliding the gun in the pocket and zipping it up to her chin. The car shut off, and a slender figure appeared with dark hair that was cut short to her jaw.   
  
“Claire Redfield?” The voice belonged to a woman who sounded out of breath.   
  
“This is her,” Claire shouted back, “I take it you're not lost.”   
  
“No,” the figure walked hurriedly to the porch and held her hands up to show she wasn't a threat.  
  
“My name is Jill Valentine. I was a S.T.A.R.S. Agent with your brother Chris in Raccoon City...I need your help.”  
  
Claire's heart sank, she felt like choking. Chris. She'd almost given up hope of seeing him again. She ushered Jill inside and ran to get her a cup of coffee which the woman drank with pleasure, taking a deep gulp and then clearing her throat before continuing.   
  
“He was never in Europe on vacation...he was hunting Umbrella. Searching for the answers that we couldn't find,” Jill said to her, “they have him. I know they do. He went dark months ago, and normally I wouldn't worry...but there's no telling what those monsters could be doing to him.”   
  
_That note Claire read in the S.T.A.R.S. Office...the tone was off_ , she knew it. _Everything was wrong_.   
  
“What do you want me to do?” Claire asked her. The woman had piercing eyes like blue steel and a firm nose that gave her features an air of undeniable seriousness.   
  
“Take the fight to them,” Jill snapped, “I have a job to do here, but if you move fast they'll never see you coming. I'm too big to move on them, Claire, but you're not. Umbrella sees everything, like a god damn spider with their legs stretched across the globe...and I'm working to snip them off, but I need Chris. Barry, our partner, will get you everything you need.”  
  
Jill rubbed her hands down her jaw, “He was working with Chris before he went missing, He can give you access to security codes, weapons, surveillance footage, the works.”   
  
_Leon...Sherry...I was finally going to get to see them again. Chris...Umbrella..._  
  
If she could find her brother, reunite him with Jill, Sherry would never have to hide again. None of them would. They could eliminate that threat once and for all. Claire leaned over the fire, watching it burn, seeing her past. Her present. A future without Umbrella...a world where she could have her brother, Leon, Sherry, all together again. A world where they could come home.   
  
Maybe next Halloween they could go into town, hand out candy on Main Street. Next Thanksgiving they could set out her mom's fine plates. Next Christmas, that living room wouldn't be so empty.   
  
“Where am I going?” She finally spoke above the crackling flames.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for reading and putting up with my awful update times! I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I did writing it. Your feedback has been phenomenal and I love your response, positive or negative. 
> 
> Again, thank you from the bottom of my heart for staying with me through this!


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